>> first of all, thank you for coming to celebrate this incredible milestone. i am really excited that she accepted. because i know what you often times may see is the fights between kim and i. what you don't know is about the friendship and the amount of love and respect i truly have for her and her work ethic from the moment i met her actively

engaged in labor in a way that brought the conversation to a different level around women and minorities and their role in leadership and labor. it is good to see more women step up and in fact, it is 125 year history not one woman has ever led the san francisco labor council and kim is doing that, which is absolutely extraordinary. [applause] and you are the first executive director of the labor council to serve on this work force investment board because i didn't want to appoint the others. just kidding. but in fact, you know, this is so important. when i think about growing up in the western addition and the fights that we used to have to be included in the placements

and job opportunities that exist in the city, i feel like we have come a long way but we still have a long way to go to make the real connections between people in many of the communities that many of you represent but himself the same people who want these opportunities, the new jobs that come to san francisco. not just the work related to construction and engineering but as you know there are even shortage of nurses. the work you have done with nuhw was extraordinary onever the years. how that played a role to make sure there is a real connection between people and the opportunities, through organized labor to make sure they get their fair share, the appropriate pay and benefits and the ability to take care of themselves and their families. you have been doing this work for a really long time. i know that you are going to bring a really strong voice to

this body. in the process you are going to make a lot of folks upset what it is you have to say, but i wouldn't have wanted it any other way because some things need to be upset. some things need challenged. in fact, i am not afraid of a challenge and not afraid of the conversations that need to be had to get to a better place that is what we want. we want a better place so people have better lives. you have dedicated your lives to public service. organized labor but public service because of the people that you know you represent. the people that you know are counting on autophytes for them and make the right decisions that are going to have an impact onnary families and livelihood. regardless of disagreements at the end of the day the underlying message i know that is most important to much of you

and i know is important to kill is the fact that we want to fight for better lives for the people we represent. that is why you are going to be serving on this board, and i appreciate and honor that you accepted this opportunity. i am looking forward to seeing something change for the better for workers throughout san francisco. with that let's debt you sworn in. (applause). >> i will put on my mask. covid is running rampant and we are close to each other. place raise your right hand and repeat. i say your name do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of

california against all enemies foreign and domestic that i bear true faith and allegiance to the same. that i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter and during such time as i serve as a member of the work force investment san francisco board for the city and county of san francisco. congratulations. [applause] >> here is a little city seal

pen with my signature. i give this to all people i swear in to serve. ladies and gentlemen, the latest person for the board tackling work force in san francisco and making real change. [applause] >> thank you, mayor breed, for taking time-out of your schedule to do this. thank you to the leaders of labor here today, especially my board members, susan, mike, charlie, debra, and my good friend karen. i want to thank you for taking time for the swearing in. it means a lot to me because i

have always been really challenged by the fact there rvs and have notes in the work force, and i really want to fight overcoming making sure that everyone becomes a very. everyone has an opportunity to get a job and a wealthy job and to join a union if they so choose. that is my mantra since i was little. it is my mantra to this day. i will fight to make sure. that is what the labor council is about making sure there are opportunities for people and career ladders. that has always been what i have been about. i want to make sure that happens. we have seen companies take advantage of people especially during strikes when they go into poor neighborhoods to try to

recruit scabs. we knead to emphasize recruiting people to getting into them into construction and janitors and construction trades and up the ladder and nursing, healthcare. these are all opportunities they should all have. we want to make sure that the san franciscans that we all know and love have that opportunity and that is my goal for this. i really intend to implement a labor caucus to make sure that we are doing what we need to do to give every san franciscan the opportunity be to participate from our economic recovery from covid and overall economic recovery as we get on with opening up the city and making sure that people come to san francisco. those the obstacles before us. i hope we overcome them

altogether as we move along. thank you. [applause].

hi everyone. i'm san francisco mayor london breed and i know that many of you have been anxious to hear what's happening with this new omicron variant. the coronavirus and we're here today to talk about and announce that here in the city and county of san francisco under the university of california san francisco and our partnership with the department of public health using the latest of technology, we have discovered our first case not only here in san francisco but the entire country and i wanted to at this time introduce dr. grant colfax to talk about the specifics and what that means in terms of what we need to do as a city.

dr. colfax. >> thank you, mayor breed. good morning everybody and thank you, mayor breed, for your ongoing leadership during this pandemic. and i want to thank our partners at u.c.s.f. and especially dr. charles chiu and his team and i'd also like to thank our testing partner dr. scott topper. both are here today. and, of course my partner dr. mary ellen carol. all of us have been working in the last 24 hours with our state and federal partners at cdc and the state department of health to determine whether this indeed is the first case of omicron that has been detected and that has indeed been the result of our work overnight.

i want to acknowledge our health officer dr. susan philip. but i also want to emphasize this is not a surprise. for those of you who knew, we thought omicron was already here. we just hadn't detected it yet. so this is cause for concern, but it's also certainly not a cause for panic. we are prepared in the city for this with regard to the case itself. the person recently traveled to south africa and they did the right thing and got tested and reported their travel history. they had mild symptoms and thankfully recovered. contacts have been notified by the health department. and, again, here's what we know

now. san francisco is relatively well positioned to respond to variants. our vaccine rate is high. more boosters are going into arms every day. 5-11-year-olds are getting vaccinated at rapid uptake. our masking and vaccine requirements are among the most stringent in the country. these efforts have been very effective in helping us slow the spread of the virus. and there's still a lot we do not know about omicron. we don't know how infectious itself although there's a strong likelihood that it is more infectious than delta. we don't know how sick it makes people. and we're studying that throughout the world. we don't know how the vaccines

will protect against transmission due to omicron. but most experts that i have spoken to believe the vaccine is still protective against the omicron variant. to best protect against this variant, get vaccinated for goodness sakes if you have not been vaccinated. get your booster if you're eligible. continue to wear those masks inside where required. continue to take the steps that we know that has been successful in san francisco to prevent major loss of life and to slow the spread of this virus. we know how to do this, san francisco. at this time, we do not anticipate changing any of our

health orders or changing restrictions or imposing new restrictions in san francisco. we will share information as we have it and get vaccinated, get your booster, wear the mask and for goodness sakes it's been a long almost 24 months now. please have a great holiday season with your family. and now i'd like to turn it over to dr. chiu whose team worked so hard overnight to make sure we get this information as quickly as possible. thank you. >> good afternoon. so my laboratory at university california san francisco has been working very closely over the past year with the san francisco department of public health, the california department of public health and

color genomics on genome basics of the virus. by that, we identify covid positive cases in the city and county, we make an attempt to sequence all cases that we are able to identify. this particular sample, i heard about it yesterday at about 3:00 p.m. and we were able to receive the sample in the laboratory by 8:00 p.m. we ran a very fast molecular test which looks for psychgene drop-out. we were able to get the results of that test within two hours showing that potentially this sample was an omicron variant sample l. to concur this finding, we needed the viral genome of this virus and we used a pocket size sequencer made by oxford

technologies. this is a sequencing technology in which we can go from detecting the virus to being able to detect the entire genome within a few hours. we were able to confirm the detection of omicron within five hours and we had most of the genome within eight hours. so 4:00 a.m. last night we were able to detect the omicron variant. thank you. >> thank you. i think the goal of the public is to get vaccinated. the challenges with the covid-19 virus and what this means is we want to make sure

that people get vaccinated. so at this time, if anyone has any questions, please let me know. are there any questions? yes. i'll let dr. colfax answer that question. >> i'm sorry. i heard about sequencing, but i didn't quite hear the details of the question. i'll try to answer what i take

the character of the question to be which is we are continuing to work with color, with dr. chiu's lab, with the state to sequence samples. we work with a number of partners in doing that. so generally, we're sampling more in san francisco and it depends on the site. so with our partnership at u.c.s.f. and the latino taskforce, all those samples are being sequenced and then i'll turn to have them answer what percent of their samples are being. i think the key with the sequencing right now with the sample, the turn around time is considerable. so that's why we really wanted to run this sample locally as quickly as possible. as you know, across the nation and across the state locally, we're continuing to ensure that

we sequence specimens as quickly as possible. again, i think the point is omicron is here. i don't want to be focused on when's the next case coming. we should all be reactive as we were yesterday. we need to get those vaccines and boosters get tested if you know that you've been exposed and continue to wear those masks. and i don't know if you have more to add. dr. topper. >> yeah. so color health provides much of the infrastructure to execute their programs to defend against covid. to make unique samples available for sequencing. almost 100% of the samples, of the positive samples that are identified in san francisco and in california are being routed

for sequencing. my name's scott topper. i'm the vice president of clinical operations at color. i'm going to let dr. philip answer that question. >> i believe you were talking about walking through contact tracing. first of all. thank you to our lab partners. also, thank you to the individual themselves. they recognized that they had symptoms and they did what we should all be doing which is to get tested with symptoms. and then they reached out to

sfpdh, with our team. we were able to speak with them. so with all investigations and contracting, we're talking to the individual, understanding what their risk factors might have been, in this case travel and i'm speaking with them to make sure they're staying home and once they know they have a positive test and then speaking to them about close contact. so that is the usual path that we follow, that is what we're doing in this case and we're in the process of doing that with this individual now. the question was what kind of close contacts? yeah. for privacy reasons, we are giving out limited information about the specifics of the individual, but we are in the process of finding out the people that may have been in close contact with them and reaching out to those individuals specifically. the general definition is of a

close contact is someone who has been within 6' for 15 minutes or more. that's the definition that has not yet changed. as we are learning more. we will understand that that definition has to change if this virus was more transmissible and that is generally what we ask people about. we most often will ask what other people are residing in the home. it's generally the length of time and being with someone. that is all in process now. the question is now people have been traveling outside southern africa. the travel policy is governed at the national level and so we know there is a restriction, noncitizens traveling. we understand from our cdc colleagues that additional

steps and requirements will be coming into place. and people are required to have a test within 72 hours. and we likely will be hearing more in the coming days with omicron of additional steps people will be asked to take pre and post travel. >> the question was about age. we're not giving specific information. this was a previously healthy individual. their symptoms were mandy bujold and they did not have to be hospitalized. yes. this person was aware of the news of omicron and that's why they appropriately reached out after they returned from travel and then had their positive

test result through the color laboratory. they got their result and reached out to public health. so i really appreciate the person's awareness and collaboration on this case. >> yeah. there's another question here. yeah. i think that's probably an answer for dr. chiu. so the question is what lessons could sequencing provide for you. sequencing is very useful, has been shown to be very useful as a way to understand how understand the emergence of new variants in the community. it can also help with contact

tracing, with being able to investigate outbreaks because the genome sequence is very often is specific for giving an individual so we can use the genomic sequence for how the transmission chains from person to person in the course of an outbreak. and from this example, it's useful in identifying specific variants such as the omicron variant. to be able to identify the new variants in the community. i'm sorry. i missed that question. >> reporter: [inaudible] >> based on the question you're asking, is this the first sequence -- is this the first sample l that we've sequenced

outside of the country? this is the first example of where we saw the s-gene sample. i've been told we have time for one more question. thank you and just to emphasize, you know, this is not where we were 20 months ago. we are in a much better place. i don't want us to focus on counting omicron cases as much as the fact it is here, it's likely to increase over assume. we've got to get those boosters and vaccines. continue to wear the masks. thank you.

shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their shopping and dining within the 49 square miles of san francisco. by supporting local services within our neighborhoods, we help san francisco remain unique, successful, and vibrant. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> my name is ray behr. i am the owner of chief plus. it's a destination specialty foods store, and it's also a corner grocery store, as well. we call it cheese plus because there's a lot of additions in addition to cheese here. from fresh flowers, to wine, past a, chocolate, our dining area and espresso bar. you can have a casual meeting if you want to. it's a real community gathering

place. what makes little polk unique, i think, first of all, it's a great pedestrian street. there's people out and about all day, meeting this neighbor and coming out and supporting the businesses. the businesses here are almost all exclusively independent owned small businesses. it harkens back to supporting local. polk street doesn't look like anywhere u.s.a. it has its own businesses and personality. we have clothing stores to gallerys, to personal service stores, where you can get your hsus repaired, luggage repaired. there's a music studio across the street. it's raily a diverse and unique offering on this really great street. i think san franciscans should shop local as much as they can because they can discover things that they may not be familiar

with. again, the marketplace is changing, and, you know, you look at a screen, and you click a mouse, and you order something, and it shows up, but to have a tangible experience, to be able to come in to taste things, to see things, to smell things, all those things, it's very important that you do so. . >> clerk: this is the regular meeting of the small business commission held on january 10th, 2022. held to order at 4:30 p.m. it can be vieweded on sfgov tv 2 or live streamed at sfgovtv.org. members of the public who will be calling in, the number